Sensei of Shambala

Summary

The books of Anastasia Novykh are phenomenous for the fact that every person sees as if in the mirror something of his or her own, purely personal. This book discloses the inner world of a sixteen-year-old girl, who suddenly encounters death face to face. This pushes her to reconsideration of her own life and search of answers to the everlasting questions: “What is the sense of life?"

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Sensei of Shambala - Sensei Publishing house

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2009

Prologue

The silent, warm summer night has long entered its sovereign rights, relieving the bustling day with all its important and troublesome running about. Its deep, dark veil was calming and sweetly lulling all living beings, slowly submerging them into a deep sleep. This charm didn’t affect only hearts in love, for whom eternity seemed to pass in an instant. On the sea shore, in an uninhabited place, a lonely fire crackled, casting mysterious shadows. A formless creature sat alone in front of it. Its only witness was an infinite universe, brightly illuminated by starlit worlds, and the moon, inviting eternity with its silvery sparkling path on the water surface. All around was such a stillness that even the sea couldn’t dare to disturb it with the soft noise of its waves. Time seemed to have stopped, losing all its meaning. It was the moment of eternity.

The creature started to move, making strange sounds, and slowly divided itself into two stirring parts. Human speech could be heard in the air, God, how good can it be sometimes in this sinful world.

Honestly, I don’t even want to leave.

That’s what I’m telling you.

The fire was blazing brightly, jealously trying to win back a piece of space from the night. Its luminous glares with variable success were first swollen by the darkness and then fearlessly running far ahead, illuminating nature with its natural tones.

So, what will your decision be, Rigden?

My conclusions are, of course, sad. But I think it is still worthwhile to wait a little for a final decision… I suppose it’s worthwhile to remain here for some time.

It’s not all that bad. If you decide to stay, give them another chance and let me…

Suddenly, from nowhere, a light breeze flew over the sea, breathing life into the moonlit path, which charmingly sparkled with its silver hues, alluring leading into a hazy distance. It was as if nature was teasing the creature, embracing it on the one hand with its eternity and on the other with its natural earthly beauty. Apparently, some innermost mystery, known only to it, was hidden in this delicate gust.

1

It’s not a secret that destiny guides a man by a complex journey of the finest interrelations, natural phenomena, and intricately bound paths of occurrences and coincidences. At the very end it leads to a concrete event, a final crossroads of the life’s path. And here a human dares to hope that he will get a chance to choose. But the same implacable power of destiny, through a net of logically bound circumstances, unnoticeably helps him to make his choice. Because a chain of events, by its plan, inevitably should draw together people who don’t know each other yet and who, living in their own small world, don’t even realize it at the moment. But this acquaintance will make them work together, mutually seeking the same goal, generating a great number of key events in the lives of other people.

I shared the same fare. I was born in a remote Russian village. My parents were in the military, fulfilling their duty in an honest and fair way. And their command, in the same honest and fair way, was sending us into different parts of our boundless motherland – the Soviet Union. That’s how our family got to Ukraine, to the country of blooming chestnuts, where we settled down in a rose-scented miner’s land.

I should say that I’m quite an outgoing person with various interests. It was never a problem for me to find a common language with new people. That’s why I quickly joined a group of like-minded people in my new home. Together we had different hobbies, including ballroom dancing and going to the cinema, cafes, and the theater. In general, as they say, my life took its normal course.

Everything was nice… up to a certain moment. Destiny has its own plans. Unexpectedly for my relatives and moreover for me, at the very peak of my youth, it threw me into such an arduous trial that I almost died in it because of complete hopelessness and animalistic fear of death.

2

At the beginning of the last school year, I started to have headaches that were strong and chronic. My parents took me for a checkup. Doctors discussed the results mostly alone with them, which disturbed me a lot. It gave rise to shady concerns that one after another started to torment my soul. This complete uncertainty was the worst thing of all.

And all those circumstances were terribly scary up to a certain point, when I overheard by chance my mother’s conversation with a doctor:

…But there should be some way out, shouldn’t there be?

Of course, a way out can always be found. You see, this small tumor can grow progressively larger over time, and that’s very dangerous. It is best to perform an operation now before it’s too late… Besides, in Moscow, there is a very good clinic that specializes in these kinds of problems with skilled specialists. The only problem is that it’s hard to get there. The waiting list is scheduled for years ahead. But the girl needs it, as you understand, as fast as possible. Otherwise… it’s hard to predict the development of this disease, especially if it’s a brain tumor. Sometimes one can live a year, and sometimes even longer… In any case, you shouldn’t lose hope. Maybe you have connections that will let you get there…

I wasn’t listening to the rest of the conversation. Only one phrase was pulsating in my head: One year… and the end! Emptiness and hopelessness gripped my soul. Noisy hospital fuss was gradually fading out, giving way to a rising whirl of thoughts: I will die in the prime of my life! But I haven’t even started to live… Why me? What have I done to deserve this?! It was a scream of despair. Tears streamed down my cheeks. It became unbearably stuffy in the hospital crypt, and I ran to the exit. The doctor’s voice was ringing in my ears like a threatening echo: One year! One year…One!

Fresh air hit me in the face with its dizzy aroma. Little by little I came to my senses and looked around. After the rain, trees stood as if in a fairy tale, with brilliantly sparkling pendants. Purity and renewal was shining all around. Warmth, coming from the ground, was covering the asphalt with a light haze, creating an unreal impression of what was happening. God, how wonderful everything was! This beauty of nature that I had never noticed before now gained some new meaning, a new charm of its own. All small problems that had brought me so many worries every day now seemed to be so trivial and stupid. With bitterness and anguish, I looked at the bright sun, fresh green grass, cheerful bird flitting, and thought: How foolishly I have spent my life. It’s a pity that I didn’t have time to do something really worthwhile! All previous resentments, gossip, vanity – all lost its meaning. Now all those around me were lucky people, and I was a prisoner in a death castle.

For some time I was terribly depressed. I lost interest in school, everyday life, all of my previous hobbies. I was avoiding my parents, locking my bedroom door, and indifferently turning pages of books and magazines. I really wanted to cry to somebody, to tell someone how much I was afraid of dying before I had started to live. My closest friend was, of course, my mother. But how can a mother’s heart endure such a soul-screaming confession from her child? One day, sitting at the table, alone with my heavy thoughts, I took up a pen and described all my feelings on a piece of notebook paper. I felt a lot better. Then I started a diary. Later on it became my best friend that patiently endured all my thoughts about my non-ordinary destiny.

The only thing that somehow distracted me from my gloomy thoughts was communication with my friends. Of course, I didn’t tell them anything about my disease. I just didn’t want to see them, like my parents, with mournful eyes and faces full of condolence. That would have killed me once and for all. Their funny chatter amused me, they discussed problems that seemed complete nonsense. Now I looked at everything in the light of some different vision, jealous of any human who should leave this mysterious, still unknown world in his heyday. Something in me had definitely changed and broken down.

3

When friends finally managed to drag me out to the cinema from my voluntary home imprisonment, I was surprised to find that I started to perceive even movies completely differently. It was a time when martial arts just started to come into fashion. In newly opened cafes, they showed the most popular martial arts hits for a ruble or three. The athleticism of the athletes, unusual cases of their self-recovery, their will, and their spirit power intrigued me. I knew that it was all the play of actors. However, I couldn’t stop thinking that many scenes were based on real phenomenal facts from the history of mankind. That stimulated me to search for articles, books, and magazines on that issue. My evident interest in these phenomena spread to my friends. With hunting passion, they began to find rare books wherever they could.

Amazed by the extraordinary capabilities of these people and by the depth of their understanding of this world, I felt that it had awaken in me some kind of internal power… hope, vague anticipation that the death of my body is not my end! That insight so touched me and inspired something inside of me that I quickly started not only to get out of my depression, but even felt somehow a new impulse for life even though my mind, like before, was aware of inevitable death because few people had ever recovered from cancer. But the new understanding didn’t dispirit me and didn’t cause fear. Something inside of me simply refused to believe in it. And what’s most interesting, it unconsciously started to resist my heavy, dark thoughts.

This new feeling again made me revisit my life and how foolishly I’ve lived it. I didn’t do anything bad in it. But it was absolutely obvious that every day, every hour, I was justifying my own egotism, selfishness, laziness. I wasn’t striving to know myself but rather how to gain more points in society through that knowledge. Or, to make a long story short, in all my life, studies, and family life, only one thought was hiding behind it all: Me, myself and I. And the realization that this small bodily empire of me was coming to the big end, that is, to the real death, gave birth in me to all that animal fear, horror, despair, and hopelessness that I had been so intensively experiencing in the last couple of weeks. I realized that death is not as fearsome as its foolish anticipation. Because in reality, it’s not the bodily death you are waiting for, but the crash of your egotistic world, which you’ve been building so hard all your life.

After that realization, I clearly understood that the life I lived and what I’ve done in it is a sandcastle on the sea shore, where any wave will wash away all my efforts in a second. And nothing will be left, only emptiness, the same one that was before me. It seemed to me that most people around me also waste their lives with sandcastles, thoroughly building them, some closer and some further from the coastline. But the result will inevitably be the same for all of them - one day all will be destroyed by the wave of time. But there are people who sit on dry land and impartially observe this human illusion. Or maybe not even observe, but look afar, over it, at something eternal and unchanging. I wonder, what do they think about, what is their internal world like? After all, if they have comprehended this mortality, it means that they have realized something really important, something really worth spending their life on.

These questions began to worry me more than anything else. But I didn’t find answers to them. Then I turned to the literature of major world religions. The great figures, such as Buddha, Jesus, Mohammed, were those who had already been observing from the shore. But how did they get there? It’s written everywhere: by concentration, faith, prayer. But how? Explanations of their followers were so confusing, so odd and veiled, that my brain was falling asleep when my eyes were making efforts to read the same words ten times over. The teachings of those geniuses were interesting, but they only reflected the common truth of all mankind. Perhaps the essential grain of knowledge was hidden in between the lines. But, alas, I was just an ordinary human being, not the chosen one, so I wasn’t able to grasp it with my mind although reading of certain lines did evoke something inside of me.

Then a new question arose. Why are there so many people in this world who believe? If they believe, it means they hope for something in the future. In all world religions, there is life after death. Even after throwing away the legends and myths, then possibly there really is Something - but what? How does it express itself? How does it manifest itself?

I’ve tried to get deeper into the paths of religion but just got more confused. The only thing that I understood was that there is one thing that unites all the world religions – and it was the power of faith of the people, their attempts to understand God and themselves. And I discovered that people were searching for the very same thing in their search, and they achieved some results on their way, and in fact many of them didn’t belong to any religion. They just were wise and talented individuals.

Then, what’s the matter? Why is this phenomenon inherent to human nature? What’s behind it? There were plenty of questions, but too few answers. That gave me cause to search further.

Gradually, everyday life was getting back to normal. Moreover, some unusual courage started to arise in me because in my case I had nothing to lose. Therefore I had to quickly realize all my desires. If I could spend every remaining day effectively, that could substitute for my whole life. Arming myself with such a motto, I started to look intensively for books on that issue, go in for sports, catch up with school, and attend different hobby groups. All my days were fully filled up, and I didn’t have time to think about the bad. Even though the headaches reminded me about the worst, despite it all, I kept eagerly searching and attempting to understand everything new that I didn’t know or wasn’t able to do.

While my parents were trying to find different loopholes in order to get into the Moscow clinic, my ungovernable strivings brought me to study Kung-fu. Our group didn’t miss any film about our eastern martial arts heroes, and with a sinking heart we watched triple somersaults, overturns, undercuts, and jumps of sportsmen. And when they started to open Wushu schools in our town, where they were actually practicing Kung-fu, our group got extremely excited. We visited one school after another. But in the first school, the teacher was too angry and ignorant; in the second, the teacher considered himself to be almost Bruce Lee, even though he was only teaching ordinary wrestling mixed with boxing; in the third, the guy was simply a cheater and a drunkard. We were looking for a teacher who would be like the heroes we had seen in the eastern martial arts films. And, as they say, the one who’s looking will always find. But what we found was more than unexpected because it surpassed our ideals even in our dreams.

4

After a few unsuccessful visits to several schools, we were told to try a school located in the outskirts of our town, near an old mine. We didn’t believe that we would see anything better than what we had seen in the town center, but something was definitely drawing us there. After spending half a day questioning a great number of locals, we finally found it.

Indeed, in a low voice confessed my friend Tatyana, this place is, of course, quite scary. If we will be practicing here, I will die from fear. I already have goose bumps.

I too felt a light shiver, even though the weather was quite warm. Approaching a dilapidated old building, blooming with moss, even always-silent Slava couldn’t keep quiet:

Well, well! I think we’ve just wasted our time. Don’t tell me that someone is practicing in this out-of-the-way hole. I bet, only mice are practicing here at night.

Andrew, whose face and figure were slightly reminiscent of the Russian Schwarzenegger, concluded significantly, Generally speaking, the outside form always corresponds to its contents. It’s very likely that we’ll reinforce that saying.

And having pulled the handle of a worn-out door, he heard crafty words cited by Kostya with regret: I'll bet the doctor's in your body yet.

With loud laughter, we rushed into the sports hall. But our cheerful mood quickly changed to mute amazement because inside there were around sixty people.

Oho, Slava whistled, there you are!

But I wasn’t listening to my friends’ puzzled remarks. My eyes were immediately fixed on a fair-haired man. Even though that man didn’t differ from the others standing in the crowd, something in him was definitely intriguing me. God, his face looks so familiar, I thought. His appearance reminded me of someone I knew well. But who? I started to dig intensively in my memory, recalling all my friends from different cities, my numerous relatives and their friends. But all my attempts were in vain. I was awaken from that wild stream of memories by the melodic voice of Sensei (the Teacher) who turned out to be that mysterious young man.

So, newcomers, he said with a smile, why do you stand like a girl after her first kiss? Here you either practice or leave. It’s your choice.

That voice!... I was so amazed. For sure I’d heard his voice once somewhere. But where and when?

Our small company went together to the locker rooms. And all that time, buzzing thoughts continued to demand satisfaction of their useless curiosity. Getting ready for the training, I tried to ask other people around me about Sensei, to find out where he was from. But it turned out that nobody knew anything clearly. This intrigued me even more.

Unlike slow Tatyana, I quickly put on a white kimono and went to the sports hall hoping to find more answers there. But there I got only more questions. What struck me at first was the fact that there were people of all ages, from fourteen to fifty years old, and that was strange by itself. I’d not seen something like that in any previous school. I thought: What can unite so many people of different beliefs, ages, and life experiences? If it’s only the martial arts, then what kind of master and psychologist do you have to be in order to attract and interest all of them?

When the training began, the second thing that struck me was the ideal discipline and friendly atmosphere that surrounded us. Nobody here forced anybody to do anything, but no one ever thought of breaking the discipline. Everyone sincerely tried to do his best, and that was astonishing in comparison with our previous unfortunate experiments. Our company tried to show ourselves only from our best side, intensively puffing, groaning, and sweating. But even during that activity (painful, as it seemed, for my badly trained extremities), one thought didn’t leave me: How was it possible to create such a discipline without, as they say, carrot and stick? What have all these people found here for themselves that they train their bodies with such enthusiasm? And why do they all train in silence?! My feminine mind finally rebelled. Why won’t anybody say at least one word! For my curious, talkative nature, this was a complete disaster. But I hoped to gain at least something during the training.

After the warm-up, we heard three strong claps of the sempai (senior disciple). It was a kind of a signal. People started to form a circle by sitting on their knees on the floor. When everybody sat down, the Teacher went out simply and easily to its center. He began to tell the history of the Tiger style as if he were telling it not to the crowd of silly disciples, but to his old friends. For the first time, I learned that the Tiger style is the only style that preserved its original martial spirit without any changes.

It appeared in China. One of the Shaolin masters observed the behavior of tigers and created his own style distinguished from the others by greater aggressiveness and danger. The style has no sportive roots. Its martial spirit was transmitted from Teacher to disciple, changing his consciousness to the level when he begins to feel and to think like a tiger. By its wisdom it’s only inferior to a more ancient style called Dragon.

All right, theory is just a theory; it’s time to warm up a little, Sensei said.

He called three fighters - strong, tall, athletic guys – to the tatami and demonstrated a couple of defense and attack techniques from this style. First he showed the moves at high speed, where the real blows were happening. Honestly, I, and probably many others too, didn’t even notice when the Teacher struck the blows. All that my eyes could record was the fact that Sensei passed by three fighters and waved his hands for a second. I didn’t even realize what had happened before they had time to fall. The same happened during the demonstration of defense techniques. The speed of the blows seemed to be unreal to me. And my brain, unwilling to comprehend that, suggested artfully: Maybe they fell down on purpose, probably pretending. But it was impossible that the men’s faces, distorted by pain, were faked. Sensei came up to them calmly and helped restore their breathing by poking his fingers into some points on their bodies. After that, the boys were able to recover from the pain and shock and continue the training. That entire scene was accompanied by silent contemplation of the amazed crowd.

After that the Teacher started to explain the technique of the Tiger style in detail, slowly showing each movement and the targets for the blows. I thought that these movements were too complicated to be able to be thrown in a split second.

Having split up into pairs, people did their best and repeated diligently what they’d just seen. A plump man of about fifty years old was puffing not far from me, comically ejecting his short hands and legs. His face, with chubby, bulged-out lips, looked like a big dumpling and was neatly shaved. His wise eyes looked through thick glasses. A small bald spot, with errant hairs turning gray, was shining on his head. And how did he get in here? I thought. It’s hard to tell by his appearance that he has been practicing martial arts all his life… What is he looking for here? Has he decided to master Kung-fu in his old age?!

My thoughts were interrupted by Sensei’s voice correcting the attack technique of a pair of young, strong boys near me.

Who strikes like that? What are you doing, Valentin Leonidovich? You are a future doctor, aren’t you? You should understand why you strike, where you strike, and what is going on during this process. Your goal is to cause a painful shock, not just to flap your hands. A blow should hit the exact location of the nerve or nerve plexus. It should be instantaneous. The faster, the better. Why? To cause a spasm in the muscle tissue. In its turn, the transmitted nerve impulse, through reflex channels of the nervous system, will cause intense irritation of the nerve-knot, which will inevitably lead to inhibition of a certain part in the brain cortex. In other words, the man will fall into a stupor caused by the nerve shock…

A crowd of curious guys began to gather around him during this conversation. Sensei continued to explain, But the blow should be delivered taking into consideration that every human being has its own anatomical peculiarities. That’s why not everybody will be affected by an ordinary blow to this anatomical point. So in order to be one hundred percent sure, you should strike not with a straight tsuki (blow) but a blow with a twisted fist at the moment of the contact, so that the blow goes deep inside. As a result, a big damage zone" will appear…

This strike goes into the point between diaphragm and solar plexus. Why exactly there? Because there passes one of the twelve pairs of cranial nerves, the so-called nervus vagus" or the vagus nerve. It not only passes that point but also forms the nerve plexus which forms two vagus trunks close to esophageal opening. And what is the vagus nerve? It is, first of all, innervations of respiratory organs, the digestive system, the thyroid and parathyroid glands, adrenal glands, kidneys. It also takes part in innervations of the heart and vessels. Therefore the correctly delivered blow to this point causes an intense irritation of the nervous system, which temporarily distorts functioning of the cerebellum. And the cerebellum, as you know, is responsible for coordination of all movement functions. Man is momentarily disoriented. In other words, it means that you have time to make a certain decision. For example, to deliver another blow or to run away.

The last word caused a lot of selfish smiles on the faces of the surrounding people, including myself. What? To run away?! I thought to myself dreamily. If I’ve just dealt such a powerful blow, I would, I would… wouldn’t chicken out, that’s for sure!

At this moment, the Teacher looked at the smiling crowd and said seriously, And why not run away, if that’s the best way out in this situation? In some cases it’s a lot better to get hit ten times in your own nose rather than to kill… to take somebody’s life.

His words made me shake and turn red, ashamed by my own egotistic thoughts and megalomania. With bitterness, he brought me back to the tough reality of my existence.

Because human life is invaluable, Sensei went on, "your objective is to cause only a muscle spasm, a painful shock, in order to prevent the undesirable development of the situation. And in no way should you injure internal organs, break ribs or something else; that is, you should not cause serious after-effects to your opponent. That’s why we spend so much time here, in order to master the right technique of blows. Otherwise, if you deliver a powerful, uncontrollable strike, it is possible to cause great harm to the body or even to bring to death. What for?!… You should respect human life because one day you may happen to be in his place… Or maybe one day he will save your life. Because it is very likely that when you are in trouble it will be this human who will appear to give you a helping hand and save you. Because life is unpredictable and anything might happen in it, even the most unbelievable, what you yourself can’t imagine."

Throughout the rest of the training, I was very impressed by this peculiar, easily understood lecture of profound anatomy and unusual philosophy. It completely captured my thoughts, and from time to time I found myself thinking over what I had heard.

Three claps of the senior sempai meant the end of the training. When everyone traditionally lined up, he commanded:

Dojo ni rei (which means a bow to the martial spirit of the sports hall).

Sensei ni rei.

The Teacher also politely bowed in response and said, We’ll meet as usual at the same time. And now whoever needs to, change, and whoever needs to, stay.

There you are! And who needs what? Who stays? I want, too… I thought to myself. But the majority ran in single file to the changing rooms, carrying me along. Running past Sensei, I saw the chubby man in glasses approaching him.

Igor Mikhailovich, he said to the Teacher, with respect in his voice. Concerning our previous conversation. Here, I brought something for you…

The rest I couldn’t hear in the noise of laughter and jokes of guys running close with me. In the women’s changing room, a storm of emotions already began to roar, caused by the discussion of the most vivid moments and Sensei’s explanations. All this was happening amidst women putting on many layers of clothes on their wet bodies.

A girl with bright curls was changing next to me. Getting acquainted with her, I asked, Have you been training here for long?

No, only for three months.

And does he often tell and show such things?

Well, probably when it’s necessary. But, when he is in a good mood, he shows much more…Today it was nothing out of the ordinary.

Not so bad, nothing out of the ordinary, I thought to myself. I can’t imagine what something special would be then?!

What style did he master, the Tiger?

Not only. I’ve heard from the senior guys that have been training here for a long time that he perfectly mastered the Dragon, Snake, Wing-chun, Cat, Mantis, and Monkey styles, and a whole range of other styles that I just can’t remember.

I gave her a distrustful gaze, When did he have time to master all that? He looks like a young man. People sometimes spend their whole life mastering just one style.

I was also surprised at first, she went on. "But the guys say that, according to the Teacher, a young body doesn’t mean the age of the soul." My new acquaintance answered, shrugging her shoulders.

Who is he, then?! I started to become nervous, and my old thoughts, together with this new information, once again began tormenting my unsatisfied curiosity.

An ordinary man, I heard in reply.

Having changed, our company crowded before the exit and contemplated with admiration the unusual technique of a couple of athletically built guys who were training with the others who had stayed. I’d never seen such genuine, naturally beautiful undercuts, overturns, elusively smooth withdrawals, even in movies. But what struck me the most was the speed of their movements. Is it really possible to move at such speed and still be able to orientate yourself so well in space? I thought to myself. Great! And where is Sensei among them?

Sensei turned out to be sitting quietly aside, looking through a pile of papers and books with bookmarks, presented by Dumpling. Two more men were sitting nearby carefully listening to the explanations of the Teacher. Then Dumpling unfolded a yellowed map, and all four inclined over it as if it were a priceless treasure. Sensei started to mark something there with a pencil, constantly commenting and explaining it. I really wanted to get my curious nose in there, but at that time we were gently pushed by guys trying to get out.

Hey, guys! Why are you standing here? Don’t you know the law of this dojo? You either train here or you stay on the other side of the door. If you want, go back in, and if you are going out, go out, don’t disturb the others.

We spent almost one whole hour waiting for the only bus in that district, strenuously tamping the earth that was called the bus stop. But the bus didn’t come. So we walked to the tramway, which the locals said was fairly close: only some thirty or forty minutes of walking. But because we weren’t familiar with the area, we spent an hour and a half getting there. But nobody